Time Eternal
by Snowsheba
Summary: You miss the time when life was simple, and death only happened once. You want the game to end. - You miss the time when life was endless, and death was only a hurdle to be leapt over. Maybe, just maybe, you want the game to start again. [Dave/Aradia, oneshot, K-plus for little bits of swearing]


**This is what happens when I don't want to write essays, try to read fanfiction, and can't find any stories I would want to read right away.**

**So, continuing the let's-pair-Dave-up-with-everyone saga, I present to you the Dave/Aradia section. Little timeling friends, you see.  
**

**(p.s. any requests as to who I write Dave with next, PM me and I'll see what I can do)**

* * *

**Homestuck and characters belong to Andrew Hussie, along with a part of my soul.**

* * *

_You never realized what it meant to have all the time in the world until it was too late._

_You miss the time when a day was just twenty-four hours, an hour was only sixty minutes, a minute was only sixty seconds._

_You miss the time when life was simple, and death only happened once._

_but_

_You never realized what it meant to find that time is limited until it was too late._

_You miss the time when a day could be eighty-four hours, an hour could be sixty-one minutes, a minute could be one hundred forty-three seconds._

_You miss the time when life was endless, and death was only a hurdle to be leapt over._

* * *

Your name is Dave Strider. You're the Knight of Time.

Of all the time-traveling shenanigans you've done recently, all of them concerned survival of yourself, your friends, and as of late, the trolls. Some are already dead, but you can at least save the ones still alive. Like Karkat, for instance. It would be a terrible shame if something befell that asshole.

That's why you're always there to prevent that. Lurking in corners where future you said there'd be problems; telling your past selves where to go and what to do. It's a long, dragging existence, and not even your conniving sister Rose understands fully.

Aradia Megido, unsurprisingly, does.

"Aradia Megido, Maid of Time," she says when you first run into her that one day (hour. Minute. Second?). She giggles and says brightly, "We're just busy little bees, aren't we, Dave Strider?"

"Everyone keeps fucking up all the goddamn time," you say with feeling. You hardly know her, but she has the Time aspect; at this point, you would spill your brains to a zombie if it could understand your plight. "And then they keep asking me what the hell I'm talking about when I tell them not to make the fucking smoothie. _Christ_."

"Just keep at it, Knight. They'll appreciate your efforts someday." At her sad little smile, you know that has yet to happen concerning her. It becomes a huge grin that would be disconcerting if you didn't know the feeling time travel sometimes brings; it's enough to sometimes make you laugh hysterically for no reason at all, though you've had the fortune of being in an empty, far-off room when anything like that occurs.

"Same to you, Maid." You smirk and she laughs, a bell of a sound. You tip an imaginary hat and say, "See you on the other side."

That was the first time you met her. You see her at least once daily, now that Gamzee is so volatile and the trolls and Rose and the Mayor are uneasy. You don't remember how many times you die, but she does, because you come talk to her whenever you go on a stupid mission to save everyone's lives, again.

"Good luck, Dave," Aradia says, smiling gently, days (months. Years) after that meeting when you're about to save everyone's goddamn lives. She understands everything you do, and a part of you loves her for that alone, and though she doesn't do what you do and try to fix every little mistake you understand her when she says she doesn't want to time travel anymore, and she loves you a little for that too.

"Thanks," you say, and when she kisses your cheek you boop her nose and smile an actual smile when she giggles. Then you're gone, back two hours from where Alpha Dave is (was. He's you, after all, so long as you don't die), preventing some weird juggalo troll freak from killing everyone again. But time passes and you lie in wait of death in a pool of your own blood and reflect on your poor life choices as your last breath escapes you.

"Don't try to kill him, just subdue him," Aradia says later (earlier). She tells you about your other self's death, and you're thankful when she says she cleaned it up for you. "Gamzee's something of a wild card, but he'll only play with you and not kill you if you don't try to kill him."

"Chivalrious," you say, and she smiles before you disappear once again. This time you 'subdue' him and you don't die – but you get awfully close, and when you arrive bleeding and dragging a broken arm into the common room Karkat immediately leaves to calm his moirail the fuck down while Rose busies herself with alchemizing the necessary equipment to stop the bleeding. You hate yourself for not even trying to get Karkat to shoosh-pap him in the first place.

"You tried that," Aradia says when you meet up with her for the second (third) time, your arm in a makeshift sling. "Gamzee killed Karkat and then rampaged and killed Terezi and Rose and the Mayor and you until Kanaya sawed him in half. She was the only one left."

You feel extremely sorry for the Kanaya in that timeline, but there's nothing you can do for her. Instead, you ask despairingly, your weakness only shown to her and her alone, "How much longer will I have to do this?"

"Until English is dead," Aradia says, and she places a gray hand on your arm. You feel better from the small gesture, though you don't know why because you haven't been better ever since you went up the flight of stairs to the roof a few days (years?) ago. "Soon. I can't promise anything, but soon."

"I hope you're right," you say, and you kiss her cheek and she kisses yours before going back an hour and seeing yourself stumble out of the common room and into your bedroom. Once your door closes you go back in, exhausted, and when you sit on the couch Rose settles against you and the pair of you sit in silence. Her warmth is not as comforting as Aradia's.

Later Karkat's ranting about something nonsensical to you and Rose and Kanaya are off doing whatever they do and Terezi's with the Mayor and you feel a headache coming on like a hammer banging on an anvil. You excuse yourself to a Karkat who doesn't listen and walk out and around until you get to the surface of the meteor, where you're hurtling away at near lightspeed thanks to the troll who used to be Aradia's moirail.

One day this will be over, you think, and while you rejoice in the fact a little part of you is sad for the time (time, what a joke) when you and Aradia will part.

* * *

Your friends do not remember the game. You worked hard to find all of them, and they all have a vague recalling of who you were, but they are not your friends anymore. At least, they are your friends, but not the sort of people you would ever pour your heart to, like you did for all of them on at least one occasion.

You don't have time to look for everyone. Not anymore. Now you have to work and talk with your friends and brother and get your movie scripts to editors and edit and fix shit and pay your own bills and go grocery shopping and deal with fan mail and crazy bitches and bastards and work out and practice strifing just to be safe and _work_. You make mistakes and you can't fix them, not anymore, and when you waste an hour procrastinating it shows and you can't go back and fix it. Not anymore.

Sometimes you don't get enough sleep and you want to go back in time to get rest but you can't, because it's a new day and things have to be done and you are so, so tired. You can't do anything you could then, not anymore, and you're exhausted and you don't want to do this anymore but you do, but she's out there somewhere and you have to look for her.

You search for Aradia for a very long time and she finds you first. It takes years (years, not days or hours or minutes or seconds. Years, and it kills you).

**apocalypseArisen [AA] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]**

**AA**: d0 y0u remember

You smile and feel your heart break and sing, because you know who it is and you missed her. So. Much.

**TG**: all of it  
**AA**: good.  
**AA**: because i am going insane and no one knows why or can understand.  
**TG**: i know  
**TG**: dallas tx  
**AA**: san jose, ca

You would use all the money you've ever earned to reach her if you had to. You would swim channels, walk marathons, bike mountains if you had to reach a soul who had nightmares just like you and who knew and understood and remembers, and _remembers_.

**TG**: ill be there in a few hours  
**AA**: because now we must obey the laws of time.  
**AA**: i never thought i'd ever say it, but i miss time travel.  
**TG**: yeah  
**TG**: me too

You get the plane ticket online and are packed and at the airport within thirty minutes. Another hour and you're on the plane, tapping exactly sixty beats a minute on your thigh for the entirety of the flight. Three hours thirty-six minutes twenty-nine seconds later you're at the airport in San Jose, and she's waiting in a knee-length skirt and red blouse, a prim and proper little Asian woman whose smile is so achingly familiar you start to cry.

You go over and she comes to you as quickly as possible and you drop your duffel bag and embrace her and bury your face in her wild curly black hair, and you're both shaking even as people around start musing how cute you two are together and who knows what else, and when you and Aradia finally pull apart she is crying and you have to take off your sunglasses to wipe your eyes.

"I missed not seeing you every day," you say, and she laughs then sniffs then laughs again, and you lean down to kiss her mouth and, for the first time in years (decades. Centuries) you don't feel alone anymore.


End file.
